


i've learned to lose, you can't afford to

by angrylizardjacket (ephemeralstar)



Series: this must be just like living in paradise [6]
Category: The Dirt (2019)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/M, Heavy Angst, Heroin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 09:30:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19989898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralstar/pseuds/angrylizardjacket
Summary: Tommy’s marrying Heather, and Lola refuses to go to the wedding.





	i've learned to lose, you can't afford to

**Author's Note:**

> HEAVILY ANGSTY, WARNINGS FOR HEAVY DRUG USE (HEROIN INJECTION), AND THE MENTION OF TRACK MARKS AND BRUISES AND INJECTION SITES. IM FUCKING BIG SAD FAM. MADE MYSELF ACTUALLY CRY. HAVE AT. lola/nikki & past lola/tommy

Nikki can’t remember how he got to the fancy mansion-looking place Tommy’s hired out to marry Heather, but at least he made it. That’s better than Lola.

“Get- Lo get up, it’s- Lola, fuck,” Nikki shoved at her, still in bed, earlier that morning, but Lola’s barely coherent, strung out and basically catatonic. All she can do is groan, curling up on her side.

“Lo, Lola he’ll want you there-”

“Nah,” the word spills sticky and hazy, like honey from her lips, and she smiles like nothing bothers her but it’s involuntary, it’s the sweet relief of the morphine coursing through her veins rather than the topic at hand, “nah.” Her eyes flutter closed. Nikki gives her a harder shove, but she just goes with it, lets him shove her but doesn’t budge from the bed.

“He- Lola get out of fucking bed, there’s a car honking for us, we gotta _go_.” It’s the hardest he’s tried to convince her of something in a long while, and finally she rolls over onto her back.

“What’s happening today?” She asks lazily, and Nikki groans, and gives up trying to get her up, succumbing to his own sitting himself on the edge of the bed. It’s expected and automatic, the way Lola wraps herself around him, high and needy and warm and inviting and he’s fighting a losing battle. Tommy’s getting married in a few hours; he and Lola need to leave soon to get ready, but she’s pulling him back into bed, and he doesn’t have the strength to fight it.

“Tommy‘d want us there, babe.”

“Where?” Lola asks, before laughing brighter than she had in a long while, sitting up, drawing her knees up to her chest. As the sound begins to die in her throat, her gaze goes glassy, expression falling as indecipherable thoughts play out in her mind, “nah,” she breathes, going limp and laying back on the bed.

She’s worse off than even Nikki, and he knows that she’d shot up just after waking up, usually she’d wait at least a little bit, but Nikki had heard the ragged way she’s drawn breath, the soft swears she’d whispered when she’d thought he was asleep, and the sniffles and the way she’d gone off at herself under her breath for ‘ _going soft_ ’. The drugs had stopped her hands shaking, stopped the sniffling, but she’d mumbled something about taking more than usual but wouldn’t say why.

“Lo, I’m his best man, and you’re- you’re- what are you again?” 

“No,” Lola shook her head, pressing her forehead to Nikki’s shoulder, one arm wrapped around him, “Roxy’s gone- gone. She stabbed him with a pen- _God, fuck_ , she stabbed him,” Lola’s grumbling grew quieter until it was under her breath, and Nikki can feel her hands trembling.

“Don’t you- not fuckin’ Roxy, to _Heather_.”

There’s a quiet moment, finally, and Lola’s hand balls up into a fist.

“Heather doesn’t like me.” She sounds _so young_ , like she’s sixteen again and all Nikki can see is the way she looked at him, defiant and hopeful in clothes too big, too unfamiliar to her. Even then she’d had fight, but she sounds defeated now. “She shouldn’t, she’s very smart; she shouldn’t like me.” It sounds like she’s trying to convince herself. “You go.” She gives him a gentle shove, though he doesn’t move. She props herself up and reached past him to the bedside table, into the top drawer where she’d already stashed a bunch of heroin-filled syringes. There’s bruises and angry, red injection sites along her wrists and by her inner elbow, and Nikki knows he’s got the marks to match, but his heart hurts seeing it.

“We should- Tommy wants us there, dude,” Nikki groaned, pulling himself to a sitting position, feet coming to rest on the floor. Lola hummed, sitting herself against the headboard, one leg tucked beneath the other as she frowned at her track-marked thigh for a clear place to inject herself. 

“They want you there, come on, Lola.” 

He watches her inject herself, watches the way her head falls back as the drug courses through her system; she was already fucked up when the conversation had begun, in a few minutes she’d barely be coherent. She was in no state to go; Nikki himself was only marginally better. But he couldn’t understand why she was doing this, on today of all days.

“Get out of this fucking bed and come to Tommy’s wedding, damn it!” Nikki managed to get to his feet, scowling at an uncooperative Lola.

“No! Fuck you! No!” She spits back, sinking back down into the mattress, empty syringe loose in her grip. “He’s happy! He’s allowed to be happy! He doesn’t want me there-”

“He _does_!”

“No he fucking _doesn’t_! He won’t want me there; I make Heather unhappy and he loves her! They’re allowed to be happy, you asshole, and that’s easier if I’m not there!” She shouts, propping herself up on her elbows, and Nikki realises too late that she’s crying, angry tears running down her cheeks. “I don’t want to play pretend like I’m over it, like I’m giving my blessing by watching him marry the woman that made me fucking obsolete to him. He made his choice.” The anger dissolves and her whole expression crumbles, shattering in one heartbreaking moment, her lip trembles and she messily wipes the tears from her eyes, “He made his choice and I’m trying so hard to be okay with it, but I can’t watch him marry her. I don’t want to make him upset, Nikki, he doesn’t deserve that. He deserves-” she cuts herself off with a sob, crying quiet and painful, curling up on her side away from him. Nikki is quiet, doesn’t know what to say, what to do, and so he leaves her like that, leaves to the car that’s been waiting outside and tells the driver that Lola won’t be coming. 

Nikki shoots up in the bathroom of the establishment before he gets changed into the suit provided for him. Joining the rest of the band, he sprawls out on one of the sofa as they wait for the ceremony to start.

“Hey, did you and Lols show up in separate cars, or, like, do you know where she is?” Tommy asks, beaming, looking so excited and bright in his white tuxedo. Nikki mumbles something, but his gut twists a little as a foggy memory of the morning’s encounter rose to the forefront of his mind. “She’s just cutting it a little close to get ready,” he frowns at the lone garment bag that was slung over the back of one of the other chairs scattered around. 

Mick is the one who speaks up, surprisingly.

“Drummer, if she’s not here now then she’s not coming.”

“No, Lola wouldn’t-” Tommy’s expression goes from confused to crestfallen as he looks to Nikki, “she’s on her way, dude, I asked you to make sure she was here.” Nikki’s eyes are closed, and he’s fighting to keep his expression neutral. 

“I _tried_ ,” he grumbled, but Tommy scowled.

“Well you should have tried fucking harder-”

“Drummer-” Mick tried, voice gentle, but Tommy threw a glare over his shoulder.

“Not now, dude;” and he turned back to Nikki, “she’s one of my best fucking friends, just like the rest of you, and you all turned up. Why couldn’t she come?”

Nikki’s strung out mind for once worked in conjunction with his mouth, and he stayed quiet, refusing to tell Tommy exactly why Lola had stayed home, though even through the fog that clouded his brain, he could feel his heart aching for both of them. 

“You’re both being really fucking selfish, you know that?” Tommy hisses, and Nikki sighs.

“She… she wants you to be happy, dude, that’s all she wants.”

“I’d be happier with her here!” 

Silence fills the room, and Mick clears his throat.

“If you can’t understand why Lola can’t be here,” he sighed deeply, shaking his head, “you’re dumber than a bag of hammers. I don’t know on who’s account she’s stayed back - maybe it _is_ selfish - but she seems to understand the bigger picture of whatever this fuckin’ confusing dynamic is better than you.” He hums for a long moment as Tommy’s brow knits in confusion.

The kid doesn’t understand; Lola’s been in practically all the big moments of his life that have happened since he’d met her, been a constant in his life for years now. It’s not the same without her. It’s _wrong_. Maybe he’d taken for granted that she’d always be there, by his side, like she’d promised.

But that was back before Heather, before he’d fallen in love again, seriously this time. Not that what he’d had with Lola wasn’t serious, but he’d just assumed she’d still be there, like a… _oh._

Guilt twists Tommy’s stomach as the realisation hits him, that he’d assumed that because he’d never stopped loving her, not really, that he could keep her like a _backup_. Taking for granted that she’d always be there if he needed her without considering how fucking much it must hurt her to hold the torch like he knows she would. 

“You know Heather doesn’t like her,” Mick cut through his thoughts with soft words, and Tommy shook his head for a moment, not disagreeing, but trying to clear his mind, “girlie just wants what’s best for you.”

“Yeah,” Tommy agrees gently, now feeling guilty for feeling guilty about hurting Lola, considering how the woman he was marrying in less than an hour felt about her, “she’s good like that,” Tommy swallows hard, forcing a smile, “ _selfless_.”


End file.
